dev-0x7c6 / meta-retro

OpenEmbedded / Yocto software layer for RetroArch and libretro cores

OpenEmbedded / Yocto software layer for RetroArch and libretro cores

This layer provides RetroArch front-end and libretro cores emulators recipes for use with OpenEmbedded and/or Yocto.

Building

You can test this layer and distro (retro) with reference build environment on your host computer

user@localhost:~$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/dev-0x7C6/retro-build-environment.git
user@localhost:~$ cd retro-build-environment
user@localhost:~$ source source.me
user@localhost:~$ MACHINE="raspberrypi4" bitbake retro-image-full

Images

Image (recipe name)	Retroarch	Libretro cores	Shaders	Titles	Cheats	Themes	Overlays
retro-image-full	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
retro-image-standard	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
retro-image-minimal	✔️	✔️	✔️

Recomendation: retro-image-full

Tested platforms

Machine	Layer	Build against	Runtime testing	Notice
cubietruck	meta-sunxi	Often	Rarely	Unable to run kms with lima(mesa)
intel-core2-32	meta-intel	Often	Sometimes	As pendrive dongle
intel-corei7-64	meta-intel	Often	Sometimes	As pendrive dongle
orange-pi-pc	meta-sunxi	Often	Rarely	---
raspberrypi3-64	meta-raspberrypi	Often	Sometimes	---
raspberrypi3	meta-raspberrypi	Often	Sometimes	---
raspberrypi4-64	meta-raspberrypi	Always	Often	---
raspberrypi4	meta-raspberrypi	Always	Often	---
rock-pi-4a	meta-rockchip	Often	None	Thanks to @MarkusVolk for sending patches

Distro features

Meta-retro introduced a collection of switches that can be set by DISTRO_FEATURES in local.conf or distro.conf

RetroArch and system features:

• retroarch-automount - added extra automounting in /var/run/media
• retroarch-autostart - enabling systemd RetroArch startup as main graphics.target
• retroarch-online - compile RetroArch with online capabilities
• retroarch-updater - compile RetroArch with update capabilities

Graphical capabilities:

• retroarch-gles - enable for OpenGLES 2.0 support in retroarch and libretro cores
• retroarch-gles3 - enable for OpenGLES 3.0 support in retroarch and libretro cores
• retroarch-opengl - enable for OpenGL >= 2.0 support in retroarch and libretro cores
• vulkan - enable for Vulkan support in retroarch and libretro cores

Customizable variables

There is a collection of variables that can be set in local.conf or distro.conf:

Default drivers

• RETROARCH_DEFAULT_INPUT_DRIVER - default is udev
• RETROARCH_DEFAULT_JOYPAD_DRIVER - default is udev
• RETROARCH_DEFAULT_VIDEO_DRIVER - default is gl
• RETROARCH_DEFAULT_VIDEO_CONTEXT - default is kms-egl
• RETROARCH_DEFAULT_AUDIO_DRIVER - default is pulseaudio or alsathread
• RETROARCH_DEFAULT_RESAMPLER_DRIVER - default is sinc
• RETROARCH_DEFAULT_MENU_DRIVER - default is ozone

Configuration

• RETROARCH_CONFIG_FULLSCREEN - default is true, go for fullscreen mode, this respects initial resolutions (tested with rpi4)
• RETROARCH_CONFIG_THREADED_VIDEO - default is true, use another thread for renderer
• RETROARCH_CONFIG_AUDIO_LATENCY - default is 256, stock value is 64, I got better performance with higher values on rpi platforms

Video settings

• RETROARCH_CONFIG_FONT_SIZE

Themes

• RETROARCH_CONFIG_XMB_SHADOWS
• RETROARCH_CONFIG_XMB_THEME_COLOR
• RETROARCH_CONFIG_XMB_THEME_INDEX

For more information see file: retroarch.inc

Layer dependencies

Layer	Sublayer	Required	Software	Recommended BSPs
openembedded-core	meta	✔️	✔️
meta-openembedded	meta-oe	✔️	✔️
↪️	meta-multimedia	✔️	✔️
↪️	meta-python	✔️	✔️
↪️	meta-networking	✔️	✔️
meta-python2	.	✔️	✔️
meta-qt5	.	✔️	✔️
meta-kodi	.		✔️
meta-raspberrypi	.		✔️	✔️
meta-raspberrypi-extras	.		✔️	✔️
meta-intel	.		✔️	✔️
meta-rockchip	.		✔️	✔️

Patches

Please submit patches against the dev-0x7C6/meta-retro layer by pull requests.

Adding the meta-retro layer to your build

In order to use this layer, you need to make the build system aware of it.

Assuming the meta-retro layer exists at the top-level of your yocto build tree, you can add it to the build system by adding the location of the meta-retro layer to bblayers.conf, along with any other layers needed. e.g.:

BBLAYERS ?= " \
  /path/to/yocto/meta \
  /path/to/yocto/meta-yocto \
  /path/to/yocto/meta-yocto-bsp \
  /path/to/yocto/meta-retro \
"

meta-retro's Issues

Error building

 Processing files: retroarch-assets-2021+git0+ee33f8ef69-r0.noarch
| error: File not found: /home/builderuser/retro-build-environment/build/tmp/work/all-poky-linux/retroarch-assets/2021+gitAUTOINC+ee33f8ef69-r0/package/usr/share/retroarch/assets/xmb/daite/png/Nintendo - Wii ?Motion?.png

Other errors related to Wii png assets follow.

this is how it ends.

| DEBUG: Python function do_package_write_rpm finished
ERROR: Task (/home/builderuser/retro-build-environment/layers/meta-retro/recipes-retroarch/retroarch-assets/retroarch-assets.bb:do_package_write_rpm) failed with exit code '1'
NOTE: Tasks Summary: Attempted 4060 tasks of which 0 didn't need to be rerun and 1 failed.

Summary: 1 task failed:
  /home/builderuser/retro-build-environment/layers/meta-retro/recipes-retroarch/retroarch-assets/retroarch-assets.bb:do_package_write_rpm
Summary: There were 48 WARNING messages.
Summary: There was 1 ERROR message, returning a non-zero exit code.

Built on an Ubuntu 20.04 Docker image. Commit is cb9ca62ddff4ee0c185a0a3e906696c7ce340b4c

Thank you very much,

Could not find compiler "gcc" in PATH

By following the build instructions I get this error:

ERROR: Error running gcc --version: ccache: error: Could not find compiler "gcc" in PATH

after entering

MACHINE="raspberrypi3" bitbake retro-image-full

I am on Ubuntu 20.04.

Validated host distributions list

What are the distributions that are validated to build this?

I am trying on Ubuntu 22.04 and getting this warning

WARNING: Host distribution "ubuntu-22.04" has not been validated with this version of the build system; you may possibly experience unexpected failures. It is recommended that you use a tested distribution.

Would it be possible to have a list of supported build systems?
Specifically, my build is failing with
ERROR: Error running gcc --version: ccache: error: Could not find compiler "gcc" in PATH
I do have both gcc and ccache installed and in the host system's path for what it's worth it.

Thank you,

retroarch: linker error

Hi,
i just tried to build your reference distribution for my rock pi. There were some minor issues but finally it built and is running awesome. Thanks for the great work. In a second step i switched from retro-image-minimal to retro-image-full to test if it still can be built and for some reason had a linker error in the retroarch build this time:

libHLSL.a(hlslParseables.cpp.o): undefined reference to symbol '_ZNKSt7__cxx1112basic_stringIcSt11char_traitsIcESaIcEE7compareEPKc@@GLIBCXX_3.4.21'
libstdc++.so.6: error adding symbols: DSO missing from command line

I didn't have to search long for the reason. In retroarch Makefile line 2 is a switch for setting the linker to g++ that is disabled by default. Changing NEED_CXX_LINKER?=0 to NEED_CXX_LINKER?=1 did do the trick.

I thought about fixing this with a line 'EXTRA_OEMAKE += "NEED_CXX_LINKER=1"' in retroarch.inc. If that would be a proper solution for you i will send a pull request

Are you interested in supporting rockchip boards? If so i also could send a pull request to retro-build-environment. There are some minor drawbacks. Arms trusted-firmware-a refused to build with ccache enabled. Not sure why this is. Maybe because this is not c++ but baremetal. It wont build with gatesgarth but works with current poky master because changes to the rock-pi devicetree are needed that require kernel 5.10 and therefore also a recent uboot source is needed. For the same reason there needs a patch to be merged into meta-rockchip. But i guess all of those issues will be fixed once the buildsystem gets ported to Hardknott.

I had two unbuildable cores but didn't have a closer look at the problem yet and only disabled them for now